


Your Library Is Your Portrait

by liseuse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 01:51:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liseuse/pseuds/liseuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An infestation of Chizpurfles forces everyone out of the Ministry and into the library.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Library Is Your Portrait

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the wonderful [](http://littlebutfierce.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**littlebutfierce**](http://littlebutfierce.dreamwidth.org/). Any mistakes are mine and mine alone. The title belongs to [Holbrook Jackson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holbrook_Jackson).  
> 

"Do not even think of interrupting me with some inane question about the washing machine," Hermione warned threateningly as she heard Pansy’s footsteps behind her. "I am working. Just as I have been working for the past two hours and will be working for the next nine, it seems."

The footsteps stopped, which was gratifying, and Pansy snickered quietly. "I wasn’t going to ask about the washing machine," Pansy sniffed. "I was going to tell you that Luna firecalled. Your favourite desk in the Ministry library has a reserved sign on it, just for you."

Hermione turned round in her chair, and looked a Pansy with a frighteningly happy look in her eyes. "Really?" She clapped her hands together. "But how on earth did Luna get rid of that odious chap from the GeoDiv lab?"

"She said she couldn’t tell me. And then whispered something about Nargle fluid?" Pansy shrugged. "Does it matter how?"

"No, I suppose not." Hermione grinned and started to pack her things up. "Don’t wait up for me. I intend to make as much use of that desk as I possibly can."

"I would expect nothing less, my darling." Pansy smiled indulgently and held out Hermione’s sunglasses. "You’ll need these. It’s bright out there."

\--

It had been bright. Pansy hadn’t been lying. But it was all worth it for the descent into dark that the Ministry library provided. There were worse places to be exiled to whilst the Ministry proper was being refurbished after an infestation of chizpurfles. Not, Hermione realised, that everyone else agreed with her. Padma had been most insistent that she couldn’t work at all in there and had abused her position of privilege with Luna, snagging herself a desk in the Magical Collections wing of the British Library despite working on indexing. Indexing, indeed.

Hermione smothered a laugh as she saw her desk. Luna had put enough guarding charms around the desk to keep Hogwarts safe, and there was a large sign that flashed when your eyes caught it. One of these days Hermione was going to have to ask Luna where she got the necessary ingredients for all these personalised charms, but she didn’t think it was a conversation she really wanted to have.

For now Hermione was content with settling herself at her favourite desk. It was just opposite the most useful stacks, the window had a nice – but not too distracting – view of Bedford Square, and she was positioned equidistant from all of the cooling charms. The cooling charms she was most grateful for; they’d only been installed in the past few years. The first time she worked in the library, Hermione had smiled a little sadly when she’d found a note in the desk, written by Remus, complaining about the lack of cooling charms. Pansy had been part of the team assigned to work on the charms, and so Hermione knew more than she thought anyone who was not a librarian, or charms expert, should about the potentially deleterious effect of cooling charms on old paper and parchment.

\--

"Where is your delightful better half?" Draco asked as he put his beer glass down. "Has she turned into a vampire?"

Pansy laughed. "No, she has gone back to her library dwelling days. Working at home does not suit her."

"Oh," Draco nodded. "Doesn’t like the idea of working in her pajamas?"

Pansy shook her head in mock sadness. "Apparently if her work area is insufficiently official it is deemed to not be proper work. Personally I think she likes being uncomfortable."

"Very strange, that girlfriend of yours." Draco nodded, with an attempt at looking sage. "I couldn’t do without the home office. All my books around me on shelves, copious amounts of tea in easy reach, and a soft cushion at my back. I shudder at the thought of doing without it."

Pansy raised an eyebrow. "You are officially an old man." Then, after swallowing a mouthful of beer, "I don’t know. I can see her point, I think. I have become so used to working in my office, with the shifting patterns in the rug to look at, the sounds of Christiania working outside, and the hum of the Ministry around me. I don’t think I could work somewhere else particularly effectively. There has been a distinct lack of work from me this week."

\--

Hermione stood and stretched, wincing as she heard her back crack several times. She shook her arms out. Another hour or so and she’d be done. She could see the evening light through the window, and the legs of people going home. Hermione amused herself, for a while, in trying to guess which were Muggles and which weren’t. It appeared that Pansy’s obsessive shoe buying and shoe gazing was coming in handy. Instead of looking for magical darns on stockings or who looked distinctly uncomfortable in their trousers, Hermione could just look for shoemakers’ stamps. Possibly if she was thinking this hard about shoes and where people were going in them, it was time to get gone.

She started to pull her books and pieces of paper towards her, and then swore mildly as a piece of paper she’d been searching for in the stacks came into view. "Five more minutes," Hermione muttered, and picked her pen up once more.

\--

"Mwurgh?" Pansy mumbled, as Hermione lifted up the duvet. "W’time’s it?"

"Three. Sorry!" Hermione whispered and wriggled down so she was nestled into Pansy’s side. "I found something interesting," she said through a yawn.

"Tell me about it in the morning," Pansy snuffled. "Mmmm," she said as she twisted to put an arm around Hermione. "You smell like libraries."

"Libraries?" Hermione said into her neck, and took advantage of Pansy’s distraction to shove her cold feet between Pansy’s calves.

"Like dust and ink and learning and stuff. Go to sleeeeep." Pansy exhaled heavily and snurfled a little as she drifted off.

"Ink and learning and stuff indeed." Hermione smiled, and tugged the duvet up so that it covered them both.


End file.
